Hard lessons to share with you all - Posted by sfshadow

Real Estate Investing Real Estate Law
1

Posted by Ed Garcia on August 11, 2001 at 11:24:34:

Kelly,

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I’m sure that you’ll agree, we can all learn from one other

Ed Garcia

2

Hard lessons to share with you all - Posted by sfshadow

Posted by sfshadow on August 09, 2001 at 08:48:25:

I have been posting and reading on this board for nearly a year. Earlier this year I tried to structure a deal for a two unit, very expensive property in San Francisco, in order to keep it and still get some cash. I spoke with Ed at length and in the end his advice and others led me to put the property on the market. Because of rent control and the draconian landlord restrictions, a building is more valuable and attractive when it is empty. So, with great confidence (and a little greed)I managed to empty both units. Whoops, 7K a month out of my pocket while on the market. not to mention the 46K for the new roof, repairs just make it look better. Guess what, the market in SF went in the tank and after 4 months it didn’t sell. Quick, move on to plan B, re rent the units, all the new people are moving in on Saturday and I have created 3K a month in cash flow. so, that is the story in a nutshell, but what I want to tell you is while all this was going on I didn’t take care of some very important chores, that as I sit here are a huge problem, because I am out of cash and need to get some. Here they are in order:

  1. CREDIT REPAIR
    When I was talking with Ed earlier this year he strongly recommended that I go to creditinfocenter and start repairing my credit. I didn’t do that. Two weeks ago I started by ordering my credit report. Unbelievable inaccuracies. They show a line of credit (small) three times and two of those times it shows closed by creditor - this didn’t happen. They show two 30 days late on a mortgage, one for the month I paid them off after sale of the property, one for six months AFTER I paid the loan off. For this same mortgage there were three other 30 days, I asked that bank for a payment report and I was late ONE time. Lesson to you all, right now, go to creditinfocenter.com and start going through the motions. If I had done this six months ago, I wouldn’t be scampering around right now.

  2. RECORD KEEPING / TAX RETURNS
    Last year I made a ton of money, more than ever before, but I did not take good care of it and I did not keep good records. I am currently scampering around trying to reconstruct everything for the CPA and my 2000 returns. I was extremely sloppy, had no plan and again this has put me in a vulnerable position. Use your Quicken program, keep your stuff in meticulous order. 5 minutes a day last year would probably have changed how I am sitting today.

I hope you all can take something away from this experience. Kelly